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iii- - -- :' iV'.,; ' STATE -
H1TT & '--
ohy
-- 1;
COLUMBIA, ' "'
73rd Year No. 283 Good Morning! It's Saturday, August 15, 1981 2 Sections 14 Puges - 25 Cents
Drive starts
for new vote
on can ban
Councilman joins bid
to repeal ordinance
By Paul Keep
Missouriaa staff writer
If Fifth Ward Councilman Dick
Walls and beverage container indus-try
representatives have their way,
the city's dormant can- ba- n ordi-nance
will go before voters again in
November, more than four years af-ter
it was initially approved.
Walls wants the City Council to
place the question of repealing the
ordinance on the ballot Nov. 3, while
container industry officials have be-gun
an initiative- petitio- n drive to ac-complish
the same goal.
Supporters of the ordinance say
they do not fear an election, but they
and some councilmen believe it is
not the council's place to initiate
such action.
Walls said he is proposing a new
vote on the ordinance, recently vic-torious
in a four- ye- ar court fight, be-cause
" I've talked to a lot of people
who were originally for it, but are
now against it
" People are just beginning to fully
understand the ramifications of the
ordinance. I think there is a better
than average chance of it being re-pealed
in November."
Friday, container industry rep-resentatives
launched two petition
drives also aimed at derailing the
scheduled start of ordinance en-forcement
Oct 5.
In addition to a campaign for a
vote on repeal, they are circulating
what OrviUe Ison, general manager
of the area's Coca Cola distributor-- ,
called an " informational" petition.
Ison did not know how many signa-tures
have been collected in the bal-lot
drive. Just over 2,100 signatures
20 percent of the number of voters
in the most recent mayoral election
are required to put the issue on
the ballot.
" With all this talk about the will of
the people, we're " trying to find out
the actual will of the people," said
Ison. " We don't believe they still
support the ordinance. "
David Thelen of Columbians
Against Throwaways is confident
that voters would again support the
ordinance, approved by 55 percent of
the electorate in 1977.
" We have more evidence in our fa-vor
this time around," Thelen said.
He said the container industry's ar-guments
against the ordinance were
( See PRESIDENT, Page 8A)
Robert Roaer; Geodesic roam
When you feel on top of the world, you might
as well be able to look down on it. These
youngsters are climbing on a jungle gym at
Cosmos Park, passing the time on a hot day.
They'll have to come down eventually, thouah.
School starts later this month
Striking controllers
taking a solo flight
By Benjamin Taylor
Boston Globe
WASHINGTON President Ron-ald
Reagan's hard line against the
striking air traffic controllers has
been described in some labor circles
as potentially the first major set-back
to the American labor
movement in several decades.
And yet, to date at least, there has
been remarkably little in the way of
concrete support for the controllers
from the quarters that one might ex-pect:
namely, liberal Democrats and
other unions in both the public and
the private sector.
To be fair, several union leaders,
including AFLrCIO president Lane
Kirkland and United Auto Workers
chief Douglas Fraser, have walked
picket lines with the controllers and
are using ground transportation
rather than airplanes.
The American Federation of State,
County and Municipal Employees,
moreover, whose one million public
4
Insight
employees may have the most to
lose in the long run by the Presi-dent's
approach, issued its first for-mal
statement this week criticizing
the Reagan Administration. In that
statement, AFSCME president Jer-ry
Wurf called Reagan's actions a
" direct attack on workers in the pub-lic
sector" and urged its members
not to fly.
But on the whole, the rhetoric and
reaction from labor leaders and
Democrats alike has not been as
strong or as forthcoming as some
people anticipated.
Some liberals, like Rev. Robert
Drinan, the former Massachusetts
Democratic congressman and now
president of Americans for Demo-cratic
Action, suggest there is a
strong anti- lab- or mood in the coun-try,
and " this administration could
well be trying to exploit that feel- -
Robert Poli upm. cp
Says PATCO won't give up fight
ing."
The Gallup Poll indicated this
week that the American people, by
almost a 2-- 1 margin, support the
President's handling of the strike.
Democrats, already badly bruised
on the budget and tax cuts, may be
( See REAGAN, Page 8A)
Sheriff may be
violating law;
could lose pay
County Court will seek advice
on its responsibility in matter
By Wendy S. Tai
Missourian staff writer
Boone County Sheriff Charlie Fos-ter
apparently is in violation of a
state law that specifies penalties in-cluding
forfeiture of his salary and
possible removal from office.
The law, which requires the sheriff
to file monthly financial statements,
is much less clear, however, about
the mechanism for. its enforcement.
The Boone County Court will seek
legal advice on its responsibility in
the matter, Presiding Judge Bill
Freeh said Friday.
" Our action, at this time, should be
to ask the prosecuting attorney for
his opinion, to see if this law does ex-plicitly
or implicitly require the
County Court to act," Freeh said.
Prosecuting Attorney Joe Moseley
said he would take no action on his
own initiative.
" Our normal procedure is to begin
an investigation if there's a com-plaint
or if we're contacted by coun-ty
officers or the court," Moseley
said. " We haven't been contacted to
issue any sort of opinion or to issue
any statement of liability concerning
the filing of monthly reports."
Without doing Igal research, Mose-ley
said, he could not determine
" whether there is any liability."
County Auditor Deborah Robison
told The Columbia Missourian ear-lier
this week that the sheriff's de-partment
has failed, since Foster
took office in 1977, to file the monthly
financial reports required by state
law. Ms. Robison also has found that
the sheriff's department has failed to
balance its checking accounts and
has not invested idle funds, both
practices followed by other depart-ments.
Fees collected over a 17- mo- nth pe-riod,
totalling $ 15,000, were finally
paid to the county this year, the audi-tor
found.
Under Missouri law, the sheriff's
department, along with other fee- collecti- ng
offices, is required to turn
over monthly to the county treasurer
all fees collected and to file an ac-companying
financial report.
Violation of the law is a misdemea-nor,
with penalties ranging from for-feiture
of the official's salary any
month of a violation to removal from
office.
On conv; ction, an official must be
fined $ 50 to $ 500 for each offense. The
office must be declared vacant " if he
shall continue in default for three
months," the law states.
Foster declined to discuss the re-quirements
with the Columbia Mis-sourian.
" I'm not interested in talking to
you," he said. " If you want to know
about them, you can look them up. "
Freeh does not believe grounds ex-ist
now for Foster's removal.
" I think all of us hope, when we
stub our toes, that people in general
would do everything in their powers
to point out our errors and give us a
chance to correct them," he said.
No one is sure who is responsible
for the failure in the county's inter-nal
control mechanism.
County Treasurer Kay Murray
said she is responsible for the re-ports,
but she cannot enforce the
statutes.
" I am responsible for receiving all
monthly reports," she said. " Though
we never enforced it with the sher-iff's
office, because checks from that
office had descriptions on them, tell-ing
what the money was for.
" Yes. it is an oversight on my
part. I goofed, but I think you're bar-king
up the wrong tree."
The bigger problem, she said, is
the department's lack of regular
bookkeeping.
Two County Court judges believe
the court is partly responsible for the
situation because it didn't keep tight
enough reins on the control mech-anism.
" Maybe we were operating with a
little less backup than I suppose the
County Court has a responsibility
for." Freeh said. " But it is difficult
to keep tabs on everything other
county officers do."
Southern District Court Judge Kay
Roberts echoed Freeh's sentiments:
( See LAW. Page 8A)
University's clinical research lab to close
ByBradBonhall
Missourian staff writer
The School of Medicine's Clinical
Research Center will close its doors
Aug. 31, after failing for the first
time in 15 years to receive a grant
from the National Institutes of
Health. About 20 research projects
will be abandoned as a result.
" It's a major blow to the medical
school," said Dr. Frederick Whit- tie- r,
associate professor of nephrolo-gy,
who has directed the center for
the last two years.
The center has provided research-ers
and physicians with a trained
staff and sophisticated equipment to
conduct a variety of biomedical
studies, called protocols. Many of
them have blossomed into nationally
recognized, grant- funde- d projects.
Dr. Whittier estimates that of the
center's 65 current projects, one- thi- rd
will be abandoned, one- thir- d
will be redesigned, and one- thi- rd will
suffer a reduction of quality- contro- l.
He said the medical school " is not
one of the premier schools for re-search,
but it has had islands of ex-cellence.
Without that kind of center,
the chances of it succeeding ( in inno-vative
research) are relatively low."
At least two other similar centers
have been forced to close in schools
across the country, and three more
" are on the line," he said.
The cuts are part of the federal
government's overall reduction in
support for research and medical
training.
Dr. Whittier closed the center's
nursing care unit July 1, and most
nurses found other jobs throughout
the community. The rest of his staff
of 25, which includes medical techno- -
legists, dieticians, secretaries and
an administrative assistant, will be
leaving next week. Most will find
jobs in the hospital, he said.
Dr. Whittier said he talked exten-sively
with Sen. Thomas Eagleton in
an effort to use the senator's influ-ence
to gain funding, but failed.
Neither Dr. Whittier nor Dean
Charles Lobeck of the School of Med-icine
is optimistic that the NIH will
re- fu- nd the center in the near future,
even though the center's " priority
score," an NIH rating of research
quality, has been excellent in recent
years.
Over the last six years the NIH has
phased out non- producti- ve clinical
research labs, but, Whittier said,
" This is the first time that I'm
aware of the phasing out of quality
centers."
A smaller- scal- e clinical research
center, to be funded jointly by the
medical school and the hospital, is
currently being condidered. A task
force of hospital, medical school and
nursing school staff has proposed
that it consist of an 8- b- ed unit with
its own nursing staff. Dean Lobeck
said it should be known " within a
couple weeks" whether the smaller
research center can be afforded, and
where it would be placed in the hos-pital.
" We're going to see if we should
make it a budget item," he said.
" But our new budget restriction is
going to make that a very difficult
decision."
Dr. Whittier said that if the new
center consists of " only three or four
beds set aside," then " it's not worth
the time, money and effort" to cre-ate
it. He said that only if a nursing
care unit and small laboratory are
provided can " 80 to 85 percent of re-search
protocols be done at a quality
level."
Linda Garrett, a research special-ist
who worked 2 years at the cen-ter,
agrees with Dr. Whittier that
good clinical research technique is
compromised when a carefully con-trolled
research environment over-laps
with a regular hospital environ-ment.
' The type of research we did is
difficult to do outside a research cen-ter,"
she said. " People just aren't
geared to keep track of what's going
on. There's too much that has to be
known to run it efficiently and cor-rectly."
The beauty of the center, she said,
was that " our researchers were also
clinicians. Their research was a way
to advance the work they did with
their patients."
In town
today
8 p. m. A Country Music
Spectacular, Rock Bridge
High School auditorium. Spon-sored
by the Boone County
Special Deputies. Tickets are
available at the door. $ 4.
Index Ojrf
Classified 3-- 5B
Opinion 4A
People 5A
Sports 1-- 3B
Theater 2B
Church 6A
Weather 2A
Judge suggests stripping PATCO
of right to represent controllers
WASHINGTON ( UPI) - An ad-ministrative
judge recommended
Friday that the striking air traffic
controllers' union be decertified as
bargaining agent for government
controllers, but did not say the union
should be permanently barred from
representing federal workers.
The action by administrative law
judge John Fenton of the Federal
Labor Relations Authority was only
a recommendation, however. The fi-nal
decision must be made by the
three- memb- er authority that over-sees
labor laws governing federal
workers.
Transportation Secretary Drew
Lewis called the action " a responsi-ble
decision."
Asked whether he now consider
the Professional Air Traffic Control-lers
Organization finished as a
union, he replied: " We have always
considered the strike technically to
be over and we are concentrating on
rebuilding the system."
But PATCO President Robert Poli
said after the action, " We're still al-ive
and we're still well. The attitude
of our members is still strong."
Poli said on NBC's " Today" show
the government is going to " spend 10
or 20 times as much money as we're
asking for in a contract that we de-serve
... in an attempt to break our
union."
Poli indicated the union would
challenge the decision before the full
authority and even go as far as the
Supreme Court.
Ruling the union " willfully and in-tentionally
violated" federal law
prohibiting strike action by federal
workers, Fenton gave PATCO one
month to challenge his decision be-fore
the full FLRA.
Earlier Friday, PATCO general
counsel Richard Leighton, pleading
for PATCO's life as a labor union,
asked Fenton to reject the govern-ment
decertification move, saying
that would be " punishment for pun-ishment's
sake" and the public inter-est
would not be enhanced by such
action.
He said unless the underlying labor--
management dispute is settled,
" neither air traffic safety nor effi-ciency
will return to normal within a
reasonable time, if ever. ' '
Leighton said in his brief, " It can-not
be denied that air travel would
be safer if 12,000 highly trained and
experienced controllers were work-ing,
instead of a lesser number of
overworked controllers and less- experienc-ed
supervisory, trainee and
military personnel."
He said even if Fenton finds that
PATCO committed an unfair labor
practice, loss of exclusive bargain-ing
rights would be inappropriate,
noting the law requires such action
be " consistent with the requirement
of an effective and efficient govern-ment."
FLRA attorney Peter Robb said
the union violated a promise not to
engage in illegal strike activity " and
( See SOME, Page 7A)

iii- - -- :' iV'.,; ' STATE -
H1TT & '--
ohy
-- 1;
COLUMBIA, ' "'
73rd Year No. 283 Good Morning! It's Saturday, August 15, 1981 2 Sections 14 Puges - 25 Cents
Drive starts
for new vote
on can ban
Councilman joins bid
to repeal ordinance
By Paul Keep
Missouriaa staff writer
If Fifth Ward Councilman Dick
Walls and beverage container indus-try
representatives have their way,
the city's dormant can- ba- n ordi-nance
will go before voters again in
November, more than four years af-ter
it was initially approved.
Walls wants the City Council to
place the question of repealing the
ordinance on the ballot Nov. 3, while
container industry officials have be-gun
an initiative- petitio- n drive to ac-complish
the same goal.
Supporters of the ordinance say
they do not fear an election, but they
and some councilmen believe it is
not the council's place to initiate
such action.
Walls said he is proposing a new
vote on the ordinance, recently vic-torious
in a four- ye- ar court fight, be-cause
" I've talked to a lot of people
who were originally for it, but are
now against it
" People are just beginning to fully
understand the ramifications of the
ordinance. I think there is a better
than average chance of it being re-pealed
in November."
Friday, container industry rep-resentatives
launched two petition
drives also aimed at derailing the
scheduled start of ordinance en-forcement
Oct 5.
In addition to a campaign for a
vote on repeal, they are circulating
what OrviUe Ison, general manager
of the area's Coca Cola distributor-- ,
called an " informational" petition.
Ison did not know how many signa-tures
have been collected in the bal-lot
drive. Just over 2,100 signatures
20 percent of the number of voters
in the most recent mayoral election
are required to put the issue on
the ballot.
" With all this talk about the will of
the people, we're " trying to find out
the actual will of the people," said
Ison. " We don't believe they still
support the ordinance. "
David Thelen of Columbians
Against Throwaways is confident
that voters would again support the
ordinance, approved by 55 percent of
the electorate in 1977.
" We have more evidence in our fa-vor
this time around," Thelen said.
He said the container industry's ar-guments
against the ordinance were
( See PRESIDENT, Page 8A)
Robert Roaer; Geodesic roam
When you feel on top of the world, you might
as well be able to look down on it. These
youngsters are climbing on a jungle gym at
Cosmos Park, passing the time on a hot day.
They'll have to come down eventually, thouah.
School starts later this month
Striking controllers
taking a solo flight
By Benjamin Taylor
Boston Globe
WASHINGTON President Ron-ald
Reagan's hard line against the
striking air traffic controllers has
been described in some labor circles
as potentially the first major set-back
to the American labor
movement in several decades.
And yet, to date at least, there has
been remarkably little in the way of
concrete support for the controllers
from the quarters that one might ex-pect:
namely, liberal Democrats and
other unions in both the public and
the private sector.
To be fair, several union leaders,
including AFLrCIO president Lane
Kirkland and United Auto Workers
chief Douglas Fraser, have walked
picket lines with the controllers and
are using ground transportation
rather than airplanes.
The American Federation of State,
County and Municipal Employees,
moreover, whose one million public
4
Insight
employees may have the most to
lose in the long run by the Presi-dent's
approach, issued its first for-mal
statement this week criticizing
the Reagan Administration. In that
statement, AFSCME president Jer-ry
Wurf called Reagan's actions a
" direct attack on workers in the pub-lic
sector" and urged its members
not to fly.
But on the whole, the rhetoric and
reaction from labor leaders and
Democrats alike has not been as
strong or as forthcoming as some
people anticipated.
Some liberals, like Rev. Robert
Drinan, the former Massachusetts
Democratic congressman and now
president of Americans for Demo-cratic
Action, suggest there is a
strong anti- lab- or mood in the coun-try,
and " this administration could
well be trying to exploit that feel- -
Robert Poli upm. cp
Says PATCO won't give up fight
ing."
The Gallup Poll indicated this
week that the American people, by
almost a 2-- 1 margin, support the
President's handling of the strike.
Democrats, already badly bruised
on the budget and tax cuts, may be
( See REAGAN, Page 8A)
Sheriff may be
violating law;
could lose pay
County Court will seek advice
on its responsibility in matter
By Wendy S. Tai
Missourian staff writer
Boone County Sheriff Charlie Fos-ter
apparently is in violation of a
state law that specifies penalties in-cluding
forfeiture of his salary and
possible removal from office.
The law, which requires the sheriff
to file monthly financial statements,
is much less clear, however, about
the mechanism for. its enforcement.
The Boone County Court will seek
legal advice on its responsibility in
the matter, Presiding Judge Bill
Freeh said Friday.
" Our action, at this time, should be
to ask the prosecuting attorney for
his opinion, to see if this law does ex-plicitly
or implicitly require the
County Court to act," Freeh said.
Prosecuting Attorney Joe Moseley
said he would take no action on his
own initiative.
" Our normal procedure is to begin
an investigation if there's a com-plaint
or if we're contacted by coun-ty
officers or the court," Moseley
said. " We haven't been contacted to
issue any sort of opinion or to issue
any statement of liability concerning
the filing of monthly reports."
Without doing Igal research, Mose-ley
said, he could not determine
" whether there is any liability."
County Auditor Deborah Robison
told The Columbia Missourian ear-lier
this week that the sheriff's de-partment
has failed, since Foster
took office in 1977, to file the monthly
financial reports required by state
law. Ms. Robison also has found that
the sheriff's department has failed to
balance its checking accounts and
has not invested idle funds, both
practices followed by other depart-ments.
Fees collected over a 17- mo- nth pe-riod,
totalling $ 15,000, were finally
paid to the county this year, the audi-tor
found.
Under Missouri law, the sheriff's
department, along with other fee- collecti- ng
offices, is required to turn
over monthly to the county treasurer
all fees collected and to file an ac-companying
financial report.
Violation of the law is a misdemea-nor,
with penalties ranging from for-feiture
of the official's salary any
month of a violation to removal from
office.
On conv; ction, an official must be
fined $ 50 to $ 500 for each offense. The
office must be declared vacant " if he
shall continue in default for three
months," the law states.
Foster declined to discuss the re-quirements
with the Columbia Mis-sourian.
" I'm not interested in talking to
you," he said. " If you want to know
about them, you can look them up. "
Freeh does not believe grounds ex-ist
now for Foster's removal.
" I think all of us hope, when we
stub our toes, that people in general
would do everything in their powers
to point out our errors and give us a
chance to correct them," he said.
No one is sure who is responsible
for the failure in the county's inter-nal
control mechanism.
County Treasurer Kay Murray
said she is responsible for the re-ports,
but she cannot enforce the
statutes.
" I am responsible for receiving all
monthly reports," she said. " Though
we never enforced it with the sher-iff's
office, because checks from that
office had descriptions on them, tell-ing
what the money was for.
" Yes. it is an oversight on my
part. I goofed, but I think you're bar-king
up the wrong tree."
The bigger problem, she said, is
the department's lack of regular
bookkeeping.
Two County Court judges believe
the court is partly responsible for the
situation because it didn't keep tight
enough reins on the control mech-anism.
" Maybe we were operating with a
little less backup than I suppose the
County Court has a responsibility
for." Freeh said. " But it is difficult
to keep tabs on everything other
county officers do."
Southern District Court Judge Kay
Roberts echoed Freeh's sentiments:
( See LAW. Page 8A)
University's clinical research lab to close
ByBradBonhall
Missourian staff writer
The School of Medicine's Clinical
Research Center will close its doors
Aug. 31, after failing for the first
time in 15 years to receive a grant
from the National Institutes of
Health. About 20 research projects
will be abandoned as a result.
" It's a major blow to the medical
school," said Dr. Frederick Whit- tie- r,
associate professor of nephrolo-gy,
who has directed the center for
the last two years.
The center has provided research-ers
and physicians with a trained
staff and sophisticated equipment to
conduct a variety of biomedical
studies, called protocols. Many of
them have blossomed into nationally
recognized, grant- funde- d projects.
Dr. Whittier estimates that of the
center's 65 current projects, one- thi- rd
will be abandoned, one- thir- d
will be redesigned, and one- thi- rd will
suffer a reduction of quality- contro- l.
He said the medical school " is not
one of the premier schools for re-search,
but it has had islands of ex-cellence.
Without that kind of center,
the chances of it succeeding ( in inno-vative
research) are relatively low."
At least two other similar centers
have been forced to close in schools
across the country, and three more
" are on the line," he said.
The cuts are part of the federal
government's overall reduction in
support for research and medical
training.
Dr. Whittier closed the center's
nursing care unit July 1, and most
nurses found other jobs throughout
the community. The rest of his staff
of 25, which includes medical techno- -
legists, dieticians, secretaries and
an administrative assistant, will be
leaving next week. Most will find
jobs in the hospital, he said.
Dr. Whittier said he talked exten-sively
with Sen. Thomas Eagleton in
an effort to use the senator's influ-ence
to gain funding, but failed.
Neither Dr. Whittier nor Dean
Charles Lobeck of the School of Med-icine
is optimistic that the NIH will
re- fu- nd the center in the near future,
even though the center's " priority
score," an NIH rating of research
quality, has been excellent in recent
years.
Over the last six years the NIH has
phased out non- producti- ve clinical
research labs, but, Whittier said,
" This is the first time that I'm
aware of the phasing out of quality
centers."
A smaller- scal- e clinical research
center, to be funded jointly by the
medical school and the hospital, is
currently being condidered. A task
force of hospital, medical school and
nursing school staff has proposed
that it consist of an 8- b- ed unit with
its own nursing staff. Dean Lobeck
said it should be known " within a
couple weeks" whether the smaller
research center can be afforded, and
where it would be placed in the hos-pital.
" We're going to see if we should
make it a budget item," he said.
" But our new budget restriction is
going to make that a very difficult
decision."
Dr. Whittier said that if the new
center consists of " only three or four
beds set aside," then " it's not worth
the time, money and effort" to cre-ate
it. He said that only if a nursing
care unit and small laboratory are
provided can " 80 to 85 percent of re-search
protocols be done at a quality
level."
Linda Garrett, a research special-ist
who worked 2 years at the cen-ter,
agrees with Dr. Whittier that
good clinical research technique is
compromised when a carefully con-trolled
research environment over-laps
with a regular hospital environ-ment.
' The type of research we did is
difficult to do outside a research cen-ter,"
she said. " People just aren't
geared to keep track of what's going
on. There's too much that has to be
known to run it efficiently and cor-rectly."
The beauty of the center, she said,
was that " our researchers were also
clinicians. Their research was a way
to advance the work they did with
their patients."
In town
today
8 p. m. A Country Music
Spectacular, Rock Bridge
High School auditorium. Spon-sored
by the Boone County
Special Deputies. Tickets are
available at the door. $ 4.
Index Ojrf
Classified 3-- 5B
Opinion 4A
People 5A
Sports 1-- 3B
Theater 2B
Church 6A
Weather 2A
Judge suggests stripping PATCO
of right to represent controllers
WASHINGTON ( UPI) - An ad-ministrative
judge recommended
Friday that the striking air traffic
controllers' union be decertified as
bargaining agent for government
controllers, but did not say the union
should be permanently barred from
representing federal workers.
The action by administrative law
judge John Fenton of the Federal
Labor Relations Authority was only
a recommendation, however. The fi-nal
decision must be made by the
three- memb- er authority that over-sees
labor laws governing federal
workers.
Transportation Secretary Drew
Lewis called the action " a responsi-ble
decision."
Asked whether he now consider
the Professional Air Traffic Control-lers
Organization finished as a
union, he replied: " We have always
considered the strike technically to
be over and we are concentrating on
rebuilding the system."
But PATCO President Robert Poli
said after the action, " We're still al-ive
and we're still well. The attitude
of our members is still strong."
Poli said on NBC's " Today" show
the government is going to " spend 10
or 20 times as much money as we're
asking for in a contract that we de-serve
... in an attempt to break our
union."
Poli indicated the union would
challenge the decision before the full
authority and even go as far as the
Supreme Court.
Ruling the union " willfully and in-tentionally
violated" federal law
prohibiting strike action by federal
workers, Fenton gave PATCO one
month to challenge his decision be-fore
the full FLRA.
Earlier Friday, PATCO general
counsel Richard Leighton, pleading
for PATCO's life as a labor union,
asked Fenton to reject the govern-ment
decertification move, saying
that would be " punishment for pun-ishment's
sake" and the public inter-est
would not be enhanced by such
action.
He said unless the underlying labor--
management dispute is settled,
" neither air traffic safety nor effi-ciency
will return to normal within a
reasonable time, if ever. ' '
Leighton said in his brief, " It can-not
be denied that air travel would
be safer if 12,000 highly trained and
experienced controllers were work-ing,
instead of a lesser number of
overworked controllers and less- experienc-ed
supervisory, trainee and
military personnel."
He said even if Fenton finds that
PATCO committed an unfair labor
practice, loss of exclusive bargain-ing
rights would be inappropriate,
noting the law requires such action
be " consistent with the requirement
of an effective and efficient govern-ment."
FLRA attorney Peter Robb said
the union violated a promise not to
engage in illegal strike activity " and
( See SOME, Page 7A)